I've been at home these last couple of days.
I didn't go back to the house where my parents live. I've just felt good, happy even.
It's an odd thing; I've been hanging out with friends, going to class and rehearsal, going to work, wandering around like I do, running like a mad man, and it has all has just felt so good. Everything feels right. The certainty I feel is strange.
In this whirlwind of activity come moments when I get this... building feeling. It comes in unexpected moments, where I'll be walking on the street or wandering campus, and in a brief burst of sunlight I'll be confronted with myself, my image. In a fraction of second, I get this notion that I have substance. I have a voice. I have something to contribute. I am enough.
Each occurrence builds on the next, and every day I see myself a little clearer, I think.
I believe this to be strange, just because he (me) isn't what I expected. He's not what I wanted, and I never imagined him like this. But he is, in a bizarre twist, what I always dreamed of being. Certain. Concrete. Real.
And it isn't even like I could tell you what is becoming clearer. It just is. I don't write this way to be aloof.
It's coming home to house I've never been in. It's as if my family moved to another place while I was at school, and I was coming home to visit. I discover this house, my home, room by room; I notice the changes. The rooms are arranged differently, and there's an electric fireplace in one room, and there is actually enough counter space in the kitchen, and the shower has hot water... It's weird!
And while the house is foreign to me, my home is not. The same picture frames hold in stasis the same memories as they did before. The furniture has all the same bumps and bruises. The silverware hasn't changed. Dad's still making his funny little model dinosaurs. Mom's still reading on the sofa. My brother is still playing video games. And they all still love me.
I really am home in this new house.
Isn't that funny? I hope this makes sense. Gosh, I just feel alive :)
Life can be so uncertain. It is, for all of us, a new experience always. Some days have a touch more certainty than the rest. Other days there is no certainty to be found.
Today is one of those days I celebrate certainty:
- I will certainly not always feel so alive, and I am actually quite certain that one day I will die.
- I am certain that I will be sore tomorrow, just as I am certain that it will be effing cold outside.
- I am certainly too lazy to continue listings things I am certain of.
Actually, I have enough drive to form one more certain thought. And that is that I am quite certainly sure that uncertainty will rear it's scary head again and again. But methinks I have stumbled upon a secret: On days such as those, when you are fishing for meaning and struggling to get a hold of what is real and significant, go out of your way to be the constant in someone else's life.
Then, at least, of one thing you can be certain: that you helped another, that you loved them, and for a moment, all was as it should be.
Dear God, we need each other.
